Once, as we moved away, there seemed to come again a distant sound of wailing, and I said to myself that it was the wind—­yet the evening was breathless.

Presently, Tonnison began to talk.

“Look you,” he said with decision, “I would not spend the night in that place for all the wealth that the world holds.  There is something unholy—­diabolical—­about it.  It came to me all in a moment, just after you spoke.  It seemed to me that the woods were full of vile things—­you know!”

“Yes,” I answered, and looked back toward the place; but it was hidden from us by a rise in the ground.

“There’s the book,” I said, and I put my hand into the satchel.

“You’ve got it safely?” he questioned, with a sudden access of anxiety.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Perhaps,” he continued, “we shall learn something from it when we get back to the tent.  We had better hurry, too; we’re a long way off still, and I don’t fancy, now, being caught out here in the dark.”

It was two hours later when we reached the tent; and, without delay, we set to work to prepare a meal; for we had eaten nothing since our lunch at midday.

Supper over, we cleared the things out of the way, and lit our pipes.  Then Tonnison asked me to get the manuscript out of my satchel.  This I did, and then, as we could not both read from it at the same time, he suggested that I should read the thing out loud.  “And mind,” he cautioned, knowing my propensities, “don’t go skipping half the book.”

Yet, had he but known what it contained, he would have realized how needless such advice was, for once at least.  And there seated in the opening of our little tent, I began the strange tale of The House on the Borderland (for such was the title of the Ms.); this is told in the following pages.

II

THE PLAIN OF SILENCE

I am an old man.  I live here in this ancient house, surrounded by huge, unkempt gardens.

The peasantry, who inhabit the wilderness beyond, say that I am mad.  That is because I will have nothing to do with them.  I live here alone with my old sister, who is also my housekeeper.  We keep no servants—­I hate them.  I have one friend, a dog; yes, I would sooner have old Pepper than the rest of Creation together.  He, at least, understands me—­and has sense enough to leave me alone when I am in my dark moods.

I have decided to start a kind of diary; it may enable me to record some of the thoughts and feelings that I cannot express to anyone; but, beyond this, I am anxious to make some record of the strange things that I have heard and seen, during many years of loneliness, in this weird old building.

For a couple of centuries, this house has had a reputation, a bad one, and, until I bought it, for more than eighty years no one had lived here; consequently, I got the old place at a ridiculously low figure.